Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Unfinished Jumper

It's been a long time, I know.

I guess my excuse is that I really haven't had anything knitting related to share in the last year. I'm still knitting, but probably not as much as before. I think the Easter Show shawl really took it out of me last year.

On the weekend I was over at my folks' place and raided my mum's stash. This sounds a lot more exciting than it really was, because my mum has a very tiny stash. The best find in amongst the acrylics and pastel baby yarn was 6 balls of Jaeger Matchmaker in a kind of navy. The receipt was still in the bag - bought in Hong Kong for HKD$10.50 a ball on 15/3. How I wish I knew the year.

Actually there were also 2 balls of yarn passed down from my (paternal) grandmother. Apparently she bought these in Shanghai - gotta be at least 50 years ago. The ball band doesn't even provide any information about the yarn. I'll post a picture if I remember to take one. It's a really soft fine yarn, probably a 2 ply weight, probably wool.

The most exciting discovery of the raid however was a half finished V-neck jumper my mum had been knitting for my dad, in Cleckheaton Country 12 ply, probably around 10 years ago? We found the half finished front (just one side of the V to go) first, and after a bit of hunting, found the whole of the back piece.

The pattern? Well thankfully it was in the same bag as the back piece, only it's in CHINESE, and there's only 1 page.

So now it's become a challenge for me to finish it. I'm thinking it could be a birthday present for my dad (22 April).

So far I've rewound all the odd balls into skeins, washed and dried them, worked out the stitch pattern, done a gauge swatch (seems my mum and I have the exact same tension), and started on the left front last night.

Watch this space.

Oh and I'll post pictures as soon as I remember to take them.